Lily's pov
The week started the way I needed it to.
I walked into the office early Monday morning with my shoulders squared and my mind deliberately focused. No spiraling. No replaying the weekend. No letting myself linger on how peaceful I’d felt walking beside Dante in the park, or how that single image of him crouched in front of a lost child had cracked something open inside me that I hadn’t been ready to examine. It was work first, it always was.
I settled into my desk with a cup of coffee and opened my laptop, telling myself this was familiar territory. Code made sense. Systems followed rules. If I stayed in this space, I could keep everything else at bay. That illusion lasted until just before noon.
I noticed it first in the way the office noise shifted. The usual low hum of key
